 Hello, Naval War College colleagues, and welcome to this lecture of opportunity about the Climate and Ocean Risk Vulnerability Index. This event is brought to you by myself, Commander Andrea Cameron, the Director of the Climate and Human Security Group, and my colleague, Professor Kate Walsh, the Director of the Oceanography and Maritime Security Group. This year has seen significant developments in both climate change and in prioritizing the oceans. We held the first open and free PME conference on climate at the Naval War College this winter, and the links and the presentations for the conference materials can all be found in the chat. We've also hosted a series of lectures of opportunity with key academics, private industry and scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and within the government. As you all know, climate change has been placed at the center of US foreign policy with countless projects across the government agencies as we ramp up in this field. It is our shared interest between myself and Professor Walsh that lead us to this lute today to learn about the Climate and Ocean Risk Vulnerability Index. The information sharing of the Climate and Human Security Group is now open to members both on and off campus. And for those students who may be graduating, you may want to drop me an email if you want to stay connected to the group when you leave, and I will add your personal email to the listserv. Please contact me directly. Again, my email is in the chat. This event is being recorded, so we will listen to the presentation and hold our questions to the end. I now invite my colleague, Professor Walsh, to share her thoughts and introduce our guest speaker. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea, and welcome everyone. I'm very pleased to co-host this event with Commander Cameron and the Climate and Human Security Group. The group that I direct is the Oceanography and Maritime Security Group, or OMSG, which is focused on the nexus of issues that touch on maritime science, technology, and innovation, as well as international security, particularly focused on the Indo-Pacific region. Because climate science and maritime security overlap, climate and science and maritime security, it makes sense to at times combine our efforts for events such as this. Today, we are very pleased to host Ms. Sally Yosele, Senior Fellow and Director of the Environmental Security Program at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C. think tank focused on international security issues. And in the interest of full transparency, a place where I once worked, actually twice I've worked there, they're not at the same time overlapping with Sally. Her research examines environmental threats that have the potential to undermine the national, regional, or global security. Her work focuses on ocean security, climate security, natural resources protection, environmental crime, and wildlife protection. She's an accomplished expert and well known in these areas of research. Prior to joining Stimson, Yosele was Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State, where she provided advice and technical expertise to advance US policies in the international arena related to ocean, climate, and wildlife protection. She's also served, pardon me, previously as Director of Policy and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. She worked as Regional Director for Marine Conservation at the Nature Conservancy, Vice President in the Applied Marine Science Group at Patel Memorial Institute, and worked for almost a decade in the US Senate as an environmental and energy advisor to then Senator, now Secretary John Kerry. Sally has a Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University's JFK School of Government and a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science from the University of Vermont. We're very honored to have Sally here to explain to us the new and innovative climate and ocean risk vulnerability index. For those watching this presentation, it will be reported, but we will stop recording at the end of the presentation and open up the floor for questions from the audience. With that, Sally, welcome to the Naval War College. Flora is yours. Thank you, Kate, for the introduction. Obviously, I must be old if I've done all those things. But no, seriously, thank you, Kate, and thanks to Andrea for hosting today's discussion. And many thanks to all the great work of the oceanography and maritime security and climate and human security groups are doing. You know, I am from New England, and I'm very jealous. Newport is such a wonderful place to work. So I look forward to visiting you in person. So as Kate said, I am the director of the environmental security program at the Stimson Center, and we are a nonpartisan think tank in Washington DC. The program really examines the links between how environmental degradation and exploitation of natural resources can affect the economic food and ecological security of nations, particularly in developing countries. Often those are the countries who are often the most vulnerable. So we try to look at how these issues can impact geopolitics, which can ultimately lead to instability and conflict. And this seems particularly in your wheelhouse. So our work covers illegal fishing, the impacts of the climate crisis and wildlife trafficking. All of these issues are connected to domestic, regional and global security. So understanding security implications, what we do is we then work with this diverse range of partners to develop and implement policies that address the associated problems and concerns, and we work on what we call a research to action model. Now today I'm going to, as Kate said, I'm going to talk about the climate and ocean risk vulnerability index, or Corvy, which is a lot easier to say. Corvy is a tool that we developed at the Stimson Center, and it measures climate security risks in coastal cities. And what I'm going to do today is I'm going to outline why Corvy is particularly important today, and to discuss some of the projects we have going on. And right now we finished, or in the process of finishing eight Corvy projects in different cities around the globe. So two weeks ago, President Biden held a leader summit on climate change in Washington DC, which brought together over 40 world leaders. So a small number of wealthy nations, as you know, represent about 80% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. They were all in attendance. Also attending with small island developing states, or SIDS as we call them, and the least developing countries known as LDCs, who emit the least amount of climate pollution that are the most affected by the climate crisis. And at the summit, really the alarm bells were sounded and increased ambition for greenhouse gas reductions and financial assistance were really demanding. With this heightened awareness and demand for decision makers to really take action, the participants at Pence agreed to act swiftly. But to get there, they really need smart planning tools like Corvy, which can help them prioritize urgent action needed to meet the goals to address climate change. So Corvy is a decision support tool, and it's designed to be used by decision makers in the US and other coastal governments, international organizations or private sectors to do just that. Prioritize action, make smart and build investments to build resilience where it matters most, while also unlocking additional investment. So today what I'm going to do is I'm going to begin by outlining the security impacts of climate change, then provide a detailed overview of the Corvy project and how it can support nations and cities grappling with the climate emergency. And then I'm also going to highlight findings from one of our Corvy projects to showcase really how it works and how the results from these kinds of assessments are being used today. So we'll discuss some of the other Corvy projects and have a question and answer period. So let's get rolling. Let's move on to the next slide please. So, as I said, you know, the Biden administration has really brought climate security to the forefront of the US foreign policy agenda. And it's for a good reason. By 2100, it is estimated that flooding caused by sea level will cost a trillion dollars every year. And if the planet continues to warm at current levels, over the next 50 years, up to 3 billion people could be living in areas that are just too hot for humans. Or in 2018, the World Bank is estimated that three regions, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, will generate 143 million more climate migrants by 2050. So these are just some examples of why the Biden administration has prioritized action across the government. President Biden has instigated a whole of government approach, both domestically and internationally, to move us forward on climate mitigation, resilience and adaptation from science to renewable energy infrastructure, international diplomacy, assistance, military readiness and intelligence. All of these areas are included. You know, right at the beginning, as you know, the administration rejoined the client Paris climate agreement on day one, and then enlisted my former boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, as the White House special envoy for climate. We've already seen benefits from this approach. In recent meetings with China, for example, Envoy Kerry successfully isolated the climate change from the other contentious issues with China and negotiated a joint statement which reaffirmed climate commitments. As we move towards COP26 this fall in Glasgow, cooperation between the two largest emitters is essential, if they're going to account for the over 40% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Secretary of State Blinken has named climate change as a key security threat. He highlighted that out of the 20 countries the Red Cross considers most vulnerable to climate change, 12 are already experiencing armed conflicts. Moreover, climate change is creating new theaters of geopolitical competition when you consider the Arctic. Also, Secretary of Defense Austin has called climate change a profound destabilizing force for a world. He noted that climate change is causing billions of dollars of damage to do the installations and impacting joint exercises with allies. For example, in February 2019. Uta forced DOD to pause naval exercises with Australia and Japan. And this sentiment is clear in the recent National Intelligence Council's global trends for 2040 report, which identified climate change as one of four most issues most likely to drop security the next 20 years. In context, what does this mean? It means that climate crisis is listed alongside financial crisis, demographic shifts, rapid technological changes, all of which have the potential to strain societies and really generate catastrophic shocks. In the Climate Leaders Summit at the Climate Leaders Summit. US outlined several new actions. Department of State and US aid will support countries around the world to help them meet climate adaptation and mitigation goals. The assistance will be provided to help build resilience in small island developing states and streamline climate finance that is so badly needed. So it goes to those most vulnerable communities. And the Department of Defense announced, it'll increase efforts to incorporate climate risk into wargaming and strategic planning. In other term, it will complete climate exposure assessments at all major US installations within 12 months and all major installations outside of the United's continental United States in the next 24 months. So it's really easy therefore to understand why this is a security risk. Extreme storms, drought, heat and sea level rise are really upending economic, environmental and food security of people in communities, degrading livelihoods and fueling mitigation. If this is left unchecked, these stressors can mix with existing social and economic grievances, corruption and weak institutions, and have the potential to lead to unrest and conflict, particularly in developing countries or marginalized communities. There are numerous examples of this from Iraq to Somalia, drought and heat related climate change has been fueling violent extremism. Resource scarcity is harming agricultural livelihoods. And as affected populations from more vulnerable, they can become targets of recruitment for extremist organizations like ISIS or Al-Shabaab. And as these organizations proliferate in fragile contexts, they also contribute to displacement towards urban centers and refugee camps. Increasing water and land scarcity have even fueled intercommunal violence. For example, in Nigeria, climate change and desertification have pushed her communities into agricultural farmlands, leading to conflict over the scarce land. This kind of violence and insecurity along the middle belt of Africa is also leading to displacement and really contributing to migration to coastal urban centers like logouts, for example. So these just represent just a few of the examples of the national and global security risk of climate change. So for countries to counter these risks and reach serious ambitions highlighted last week and leading up to COP26 this fall, they really need to take on bold actions. Funders and governments first need to be able to assess climate risks in specific geographies and across different sectors. And finally, measuring these risks have been too narrow, kind of in a still fight way, and to folk narrowly focus, particularly for coastal cities. And as a result, they often miss the true magnitude of the myriad of climate risk that a coastal city may face. So let's look at the coastal cities and move on to the next slide please. So, the world's coasts are becoming increasingly urban. According to UN's most recent World Organization prospects report, 55% of the world's population are in urban areas. This is expected to grow to 68% by 2050. Approximately 40% of the global population lives within 100 kilometers of the coast today, and coastal cities are among the fastest growing population centers on the planet. As recent reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the IPCC make clear, coastal cities are also at the forefront of climate change. And as you can see on this slide, climate change risks from sea level rise, increasing storm intensity, heat and drought are exacerbated when they are considered alongside the social and economic issues that confront most urban areas. And these changes really stress ecosystem upon which millions depend to grade outdated infrastructure and have the potential to upend economic stability. Coastal cities are often rely on their blue economy for generating, you know, money from fishing, tourism, or shipping, for example, all of which are under threat from climate change. In addition, as I noted earlier, from the land side drought and heat and up and agriculture which in turn can cause climate induced migration. Furthermore, underlying economic and social issues that any city faces such as poverty, inequality, governance gaps just add to the climate risks. So when you think about this fast paced urbanization that's occurring, it's really increasing the number of vulnerable residents living in informal settlements. And with that, political tensions from high unemployment or inadequate government response to climate event can degrade the security of city residents and overwhelm the capacity of coastal cities to respond to climate related events. Across the world, we are seeing these impacts play out in real time. Records continue to be broken. He, our foods, hurricanes, floods, they continue to get worse. In many parts of Africa, for example, drought induced rural, the urban migration is leading to hyper urbanization. I mentioned logos a little while ago but let me just reiterate. The population of logos Nigeria has roughly doubled from 7 million in 2000 to just under 1515 million today. Yet such rapid urbanization has led to this proliferation of informal shanties that are right at the water's edge, roughly two out of every three people in logos live in slums. And with climate change further exacerbating these poor conditions. Or in small island developing states, climate change is really degrading the marine environment. And as I said, the fish stocks would support food and their blue economy. Also extreme storms and rising sea levels are threatening the future existence of several island nations, making them potentially uninhabitable. And this is leading to some of the world's first climate refugees. The hurricanes are also contributing the migration to the United States. Late last year hurricane, Edda alone caused over $7 billion in damage and affected almost 8 million people across Central America. It destroyed livelihoods and displaced entire communities. And this is added to the serious migration problem along our southern border. The problem line is this, we need to develop a holistic understanding of how climate change intersects with social and economic risk to truly design resilient solutions, safeguard future and safeguard future investments and enhance our future security. We're coping with limited financial resources, and in a post COVID environment, governments, international financial institutions, and the private sector really need tools which can help them identify the issues that most warrant investment. So let's jump into exactly what climate vulnerability is at the city level and move on to slide for please. So, um, I'm going to talk now about for me the Corby tool, and the Corby tool really takes a holistic approach and assesses these diverse risks by measuring the vote vulnerability of coastal cities climate change. So I don't want to be too wonky or too technical. But as you can see from this equation, it highlights a climate risk is commonly understood as the function of the hazard. The hazard is like the physical threat such as a storm and exposure, the asset at risk of at risk, such as infrastructure and vulnerability, the capacity of the city to withstand the hazard and become more resilient. So global data sets for climate and ocean risks have really improved. And there is high resolution data on hazards, and there is good resolution data on exposure, those are available. But accessing high resolution vulnerability data remains a major challenge. And with that challenge what happens it really leads to blind spots and biased analysis. So the Corby tool is designed to plug those gaps by mapping vulnerabilities at the city level through this bottom up data collection process. Next slide please. So this is the Corby wheel. And so Corby is made up of 10 risk categories, and they're grouped as you can see in the world in the wheel under the ecological, financial and political risks. And then under those three, there are 10 categories, which in turn are made up to close to 100 risk indicators. That is a lot of information and data. So to give you a sense of what risks are included under each risk type. Ecological risks, for example, include the extent and health of nature based defenses, such as mangroves and coral reefs, the quality of freshwater resources, and the state of fisheries. As just a few of the examples, for financial lists, some of the financial risks include how dependent is a city and country on vulnerable industries and infrastructure, and the level of poverty is also included. Finally, political risk. Political risk assesses demographic factors like the migration to coastal cities that I talked about, and the capacity of key government institutions to respond to climate events. Corby is different. A lot of people say how there are a lot of indices out there. Well, Corby is distant, is different from a lot of existing indices in three main ways. First of all, many other indices tend to focus on the national level. Corby is city-based. It provides city level detail on the nature and impact of climate notionless. Second, Corby looks at a broad set of risk factors. As I noted, ecological, financial, and political, which are connected to the vulnerability of cities and their residents. And third, Corby uses a methodology that we've created that combines empirical data and expert survey data to plug the data gaps. For each product, project we conduct, field work, and survey experts all across government, academia, civil society, and the private sector, who live in or have knowledge of climate risks in each city. We then wait this data to reduce bias and prioritize which risks are most in need of immediate action. So to visualize the category and indicator scores, we then place them on a one to 10 scale, which is relative to other coastal cities in a region. By scoring each indicator, Corby provides decision makers with detailed data on the diverse range of climate and ocean risks and how they impact their cities. So just to reiterate, the risk scores are also supplemented with field research, expert interviews, best research to produce a written profile for each Corby coastal city. And again, this risk profile is a holistic assessment designed to provide information as decision makers across government, financial institutions, and development agencies. And it really helps them target investment into the highest risk areas, safeguard future investments, and build resilience where it's needed most. And honestly, at a time when climate ambition ambitions are really at their highest level around the globe. It is so critical for decision decision makers to get the planning right, and not squander this opportunity for waste site resources. So let's move on to the next slide, and I'm going to talk a little bit about one of our pilot studies that took place in Castings, St. Lucia. So, while each profile really tells a different story. What we have found is that the risk to coastal East ecosystems seem to be really important in every city we've looked at. And we've noted also that integrated urban coastal zone management. Is so important to address climate security risks. So let me drill a little bit into castings. So what we found is due to urban expansion. Oh, also, just another thing to note. So what we did is, we decided to expand outside of the city of castings limits in our assessment assessment to also include an area called gross is left. An area which is just north of castries where most of the islands tourism industry is concentrated and where a lot of the castries residents work. This decision was made in consultation with experts in St Lucia. So again, our desk research said look at the city, but when we did our when we got to the city and started talking to people, it became clear we really needed to expand our geography. So the castries Corby risk profile showed us that vulnerability is greatest under the ecological and financial risk types that you can see on the slide. Specifically in the economics, ecosystems and climate categories. And these scores were driven by risks related to unemployment loss of poor coverage and extreme heat events. And as you can see, Corby scores in the political risk area for generally lower. And this was driven by a confidence in the rule of law and civil society engagement indicators. But urban and youth unemployment, inequality and a large informal economy contributed to high financial scores. So tourism is a critical industry for castries, as it is throughout the curriculum, and it employs about 70% of the castries population. But the ecological risk scores under the ecosystems and the climate categories were also high due to losses and national for the mangrove coverage. We noted a number of heat events, and the number of people affected by extreme weather, and so this was confirmed by all the experts we interviewed, who really talked about the importance of mangroves and quarrels, as well as the danger of heat events to the tourism industry. While tourism is a vital part of the economy, it is also we found it was an unforeseen negative and had negative consequences. Unregulated construction and pollution from a lack of effective waste management and street damage drainage, excuse me, have negatively impacted the health of the coral coastal environment. And in addition, unregulated housing has also impacted the quality of the fresh water supply. Finally, critical infrastructure risks were driven by a lack of renewable energy generation, or dependence on oil imports, energy siding in the coastal flood plain, extensive coastal development, or road conditions and inadequate street drainage. So the profile was released. And the good news is, its findings have really been a resource in efforts to unlock additional climate investment for St. Lucia. For example, the World Economic Forum and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for the OECD have been working with the government of St. Lucia to develop a country financing roadmap initiative. They have integrated several of the core refinings into their own work on climate impacts, including the need for economic diversification, renewable energy promotion, and the importance of ecosystem health. So this risk, this risk profile and a second one we've completed in Kingston, have really added to the kind of decision making that we see when we provide a holistic assessment, which includes financial and non-financial risk to the city level. As noted, while the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed government work, what we have found is key findings from our risk profile, risk profiles are really beginning to be incorporated into urban resilience planning. If we could move on to the next slide please. In 2021 this year, we are expanding fast. We have an additional six assessments underway in Basseteer San Kitsunevis, Chattogram Bangladesh, Dagupan Philippines, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Lombasa, Kenya, and Suva Fiji. So the initial Corvi pilots in the Caribbean have demonstrated how Corvi can aid governments and the private sector by providing a holistic assessment of the diverse risk they face. In armed with this information decision makers can make effective priority actions and smart investments for risk reduction in coastal cities. Before cities get added to our Corvi matrix, there will be a comparative body of city level data, and it'll provide really fights into the risk these cities face around the world. So our vision is to expand Corvi to 100 coastal cities around the globe, and really have it become the gold standard for decision support and coastal resilience and adaptation. So building a comprehensive website and visualization tools to analyze for the data scores across the globe. So to finish, I just want to reiterate again the value of Corvi. At a time when financial resources are tight, the climate emergency is upon us. We have developed a tool that provides granularity on the climate vulnerabilities facing coastal cities. This type of information can help decision makers prioritize actions to target reduce climate risk, while providing a level of confidence to investors that their funds are being used wisely to improve the safety and security of city residents. So as the US government looks to upscale climate finance, as I mentioned earlier, it can use tools like Corvi to assess a climate is impacting the security of coastal cities and ensure really that its resources are being used in the most effective manner. Climate change will increasingly drive migration and urbanization is trending upward. It will exasperate those risk dynamics increasingly act as a catalyst for insecurity and potential conflict. In this environment, security experts like you need to know which popular population centers are most at risk, so that scarce resources can be really directive to ensure that we have proactive rather than reactive strategies. So I'm going to end there. I'm going to thank you for your time and I really look forward to our question and answer period. Thank you. Thank you so much Sally. I'm impressed by the index you've developed and how it's being used around the world. Before closing the presentation I would like to ask you one question. These students are our future leaders, do you have any advice you could give them regarding how they think about climate and the oceans in their future positions. Not surprising from what I just presented. Don't be too limited in your focus. Consider the climate emergency holistically environment, energy, social and economics all have to be part of the equation. Also, we have to remember that as we think about climate change moving forward. There's such a great opportunity for innovation and new job opportunities. I mean, I really see this as, you know, we are hitting a new industrial revolution, and it's all about the new innovations around renewable energies and batteries and thinking about ways of protecting our coastal environments. I mean, think about this. The ocean and climate as I noted are really linked. And the IPC report I talked about noted all of this. And I can't tell you for years we tried so hard to help people understand that linkage. And it was really hard to do. In fact, I can remember during the, when we were in Paris for the Paris climate negotiations. We worked so hard to get one sentence for the word ocean in it into that treaty. And it wasn't until this IPC report came out that that the world kind of an experts kind of acknowledge the importance of ocean in the climate context. And ocean and coastal ecosystems, the other thing I really want to highlight, they offer a lot of nature based solutions. You know the ocean is a climate sink I think it absorbs something around 25% of the world's carbon. And our coastal wetlands the marshes the mangrove sea grasses also absorb carbon. In addition, when a storm hits they help take the punch out of the storm. The mangroves themselves they store up to five times the amount of carbon than tropical forests. So think about that when you're thinking about safeguarding nature. So it's really important that we protect these important coastal natural systems. They are valuable. In fact, another area to think about is, how should they be monetized environmental economists right now are trying to put a price on what is it, what is the price of protecting nature, what is the value, you know, countries, particularly developing countries, and the else of the, obviously as I talked about, you know, they deserve credits and incentives to protect nature. And this should be added to what we call nationally determined contributions or NDCs. And what NDCs are they really make up the United Nations balance sheet, as countries show how they're going to mitigate climate change. So, there are a lot of different areas to focus on a lot of different places to go. And I think looking to the future, not looking to the past is great for the folks who joined today and I'm so grateful for everyone's work moving forward. Well, Sally, on behalf of the Naval War College community, thank you very much for sharing your expertise and information on the Corby tool. This concludes the recorded portion of the lecture. So Laura, if you would please stop the recording here and then we will move to questions.